


garlic ethics

by chickenfree



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Idiots in Love, M/M, domestic dummies, food cw!!, i just write what daye tells me to write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:35:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25957609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chickenfree/pseuds/chickenfree
Summary: “Garlic,” he offers.Dan’s eyebrows raise.“Ethics?” Phil adds.“Garlic ethics?” Dan repeats. Phil can’t quite tell if he’s pleased.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 23
Kudos: 85





	garlic ethics

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dayevsphil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dayevsphil/gifts).



It’s not like Phil doesn’t listen. It’s just –

“Did you hear any of that?”

He has that expectant look on his face, like he knows the answer is no, but he’s going to make Phil say it anyways.

Phil wracks his brain, piecing together a few words like he’s building them on a Scrabble board.

“Garlic,” he offers.

Dan’s eyebrows raise.

“Ethics?” Phil adds.

“Garlic ethics?” Dan repeats. Phil can’t quite tell if he’s pleased.

He thinks there was a whole narrative around garlic ethics, that felt clear a minute ago, but –

“Garlic ethics,” Phil says. “Yeah, final answer. I’m sticking with garlic ethics.”

Dan smiles, a bit, slow and mostly dimples. Phil still thinks he looks a bit exasperated, but maybe that’s just his face. He has to resist the urge to poke a dimple, since he might have really fucked up on this one.

“What?” he insists.

“I was talking about the ethics of getting takeaway garlic bread, and –”

“I _know_ that.”

“Philip –”

“Danbert,” he says, idly kicking at Dan’s foot. 

“A minute ago you said we were talking about garlic ethics, which is different from garlic bread ethics, like in the way that there’s a whole other word that you’ve missed, because –”

“I have a whole degree in this,” Phil informs him, gloomy. “In words, I meant.”

He feels like he’s instigating, a bit, pushing Dan’s buttons and zoning out the second he talks again.

Dan smiles, anyways, soft and easy. He reaches out to flick Phil’s temple, but he can’t even be bothered to time it right.

\--

“Is that a slice?”

Phil stares at it. He blinks because he knows Dan thinks it’s spooky when he does that, and actually Dan is being annoying. “Uh-huh,” he says.

“Why’s it – pizza shaped?”

“It isn’t.”

“No?”

“No, it’s bread shaped.”

“Is it?”

Dan’s levelling him with that exasperated look, only it doesn’t matter because Phil simply will look in a different direction. Like at his bread slice that Dan is insisting isn’t bread shaped.

“Well, first of all,” he starts, “first of all, pizza isn’t triangular in a _tall_ way. Second – no, it’s bread shaped, because it’s like – like, if you wear a dress, that’s a Dan dress, not a girl dress. So.”

Dan makes a honking noise. Phil finally flicks his eyes over, just to watch the stupid way his face crumples and his big hands cover his mouth for a moment like he can stop the noise after it’s escaped. He takes a moment to compose himself, takes one big comical breath from behind his hands and lets it out slowly like he wants Phil to hear.

“Are you saying bread is a gender,” Dan says, once he’s emerged, slowly like he has to pace himself. 

“You’re bread,” Phil says. He points at his slice. “This is bread even if you don’t think it’s following bread roles, you oaf. Bread rolls. Bread –”

Dan bumps his hip, whipping his head around dramatically in the other direction so Phil can’t catch his whole smile, just the little corner of it. Phil bumps him back and turns back to his haphazard slicing, plopping each piece onto the cutting board at Dan’s elbow. He smiles to himself when he catches the way Dan lines them up, instinctual and mostly thoughtless.

“Did you get the parmesan?” Dan asks.

“The who?”

“The parmesan? It’s supposed to have a little bit, like not a lot, but just to get it a bit salty, right. I don’t think you’d really taste – oh, well, for fuck’s sakes.”

Phil grins, smirking out from behind the massive salt container. Dan rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling again. He swats a loose hand at Phil’s thigh when he returns to the counter.

“Fine.”

“You didn’t actually think I would?”

Dan shrugs, humming a little tune for a moment. “No, but I thought I’d try.”

“One day.”

“Okay.”

“When we’re like, a hundred. Like right before I die? I’ll eat parmesan for you.”

Dan smiles down at the butter he’s trying to whack into a bowl. He sighs through his nose, though, like it’s annoying of Phil to mention his own death even if he’s got another seventy good years. 

Phil finds himself smiling, too, leaning in to plant a kiss on the edge of Dan’s dimple, staying close for a moment until Dan lets out the rest of his breath and goes back to harassing the butter.

“That would be nice,” Dan says, idly. “You’d die of cheese.”

“Would prove my point,” Phil agrees. “If it killed me, that’s a good justification, right?”

“Right, yeah.”

“Like a lifelong quest. We should.”

“Promise you.” 

Phil drops the knife in the sink, watches as Dan puts the bowl of butter in the microwave and takes about ten tries before he decides how long to melt it for. He thinks there was an era where promising what they would do in seventy years would’ve felt like a lot, borderline too much, would’ve had Dan arguing that everything was a lie in a minute flat. Now – Dan hovers, peering at the microwave like he’s divining its butter secrets. His fingertips patter gently over the counter, humming some nonsense that might be a piano piece or might be a soundtrack. 

Phil can’t imagine an hour without him.

“Sappy,” Dan says. 

He’s closer and louder than Phil predicted, startles Phil into giggling in surprise. He didn’t say anything, but – Dan’s described to him how his face goes soft, showed him clips of it and everything when Phil tried to argue. Dan puts the bowl down. He taps Phil’s wrinkled nose before he moves past him to go find the bizarre little cooking brush that he bought in some kind of fit over a baking show, years ago. 

Phil leans back on his hands and wrangles his upper body into behaving until he’s perched on the counter. He swings his feet, bopping his heels against the drawers until Dan startles at the noise and turns to him with a goofy face.

Dan goes back to humming while he slathers butter all over the place. Phil’s come to think of it as the cooking song, whatever it is. He watches with a bit of vague interest as Dan sucks a stray drop off his own thumb, rolls his eyes when Dan’s eyes flicker up to his and stay there.

“Nasty boy,” he says, mildly.

“Nasty something,” Dan retorts. He smiles when Phil does. “You want to squish the garlic in?”

Phil peers at the damp bread for a moment. He _does_ like squishing things, but this just looks – wet, mainly. Dan carefully puts a few bits of garlic on one slice and sort of mashes it with his fingertips. Nothing interesting happens, though. It’s not like a playdough machine of garlic. His hopes are a little bit dashed.

“That’s not satisfying,” he says. “That’s gross.”

Dan shrugs and flashes him a little smile. He goes back to beating up his bread and garlic, and Phil gets to watch while his forehead furrows, tongue poking out of the corner like he’s in the middle of the most important science ever undertaken. 

He loves that, he thinks. He loves the way Dan doesn’t do this kind of thing half-heartedly, how his whole brain gets laser focused on his one bizarre little task. 

He reaches for him, carding his fingers through the curls over Dan’s forehead. Dan sighs, humming a little deeper for just a second. He just stands there, for a beat, letting Phil muss his hair and scratch at his temples, even though his hands aren’t doing anything anymore. Phil thinks for a moment that he’s just being distracting, but – Dan looks happy about it, so whatever. 

“Oven,” he finally says, softly. He gives Phil a fluttery little smile, eyes blinking open even though Phil didn’t see him shut them. Dan ducks away, then, rinsing his hands for about a minute too long, putting the tray in the oven with a comical amount of care. 

“How long?”

“Twenty minutes.”

_“Twenty?”_

“I’ll turn the clocks around.”

“You can’t. I have a phone.”

“I’ll hack your phone,” Dan offers. “I’ll put tape on it.”

Phil pauses, considering that. He doesn’t even know if they have that kind of tape, and anyways it seems like a lot of effort for just waiting a few minutes before they can eat bread. He can deal.

He can probably convince Dan to take it out five minutes early, too. 

“What’re you thinking?” Dan asks, tapping a fingertip over his bottom lip. It smells a bit like butter, in a nice way. He’s swayed in closer, leaning with a hand on the counter on each side of Phil’s legs.

“I like you,” Phil says. It’s more than a bit vague, a bit stupid, considering. Dan laughs, though. His lips are on Phil’s before Phil can get any further down that thought. 

“That’s convenient, isn’t it.”

**Author's Note:**

> happy birthday daye!!! getting to know you has really been one of the best things about this year and i'm so lucky to get to hang with you, you're such a delight and you make every day just a little bit better. hope this year is a good one <3


End file.
